I'm not sure this has been brought up, 'cause I just came to this thread and it's getting a little long.

The claim has been made than Rose only bet on the Reds to win. How do we know this? Do bookies keep and maintain detailed records of a client's transactions? Or is this another lie?

He broke the rules, plain and simple. He broke those rules knowing full well it would keep him out of the HoF. I have no sympathy towards the man. It's a shame, for sure, but he did it to himself.

Well the Dowd report had among it's many pieces of evidence, betting slips showing that Rose had bet on the Reds. That in and of itself was a violation of the rule THAT IS POSTED IN EVERY SINGLE MAJOR LEAGUE CLUBHOUSE. It's the only rule posted in every single major league clubhouse and has been there since Rose came into the major leagues.

Whether or not Rose bet on the Reds to win is irrelevant.

Some assjack fans used this as "proof" that what Rose did wasn't so bad and therefore he didn't deserve to be banned.

The fact that he bet on major league baseball games, including games involving his own team is the core of the matter.

As for it being a shame, please. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was fully and completely conscious of his actions and he knew it was wrong and violated the rules, yet he did it for nearly 20 years. I only hope that he was brutally raped in prison, but I doubt it.

Shoeless Joe was the superstar of his day. Babe Ruth said Shoeless Joe taught him how to hit. Even in the series he was supposed to have thrown, he batted .375 and had no errors. His lifetime batting average was .356.

Jackson was also caught stealing by about 20 feet in Game 3, which wasn't one of the games the team fixed, but even so... there's a photograph floating around that shows how badly Jackson was thrown out. Makes you wonder. Also, the Black Sox essentially only threw games 1, 4, and 5 (Lefty Williams was threatened prior to game 8 and gave it up all by himself). Jackson went 1-12 in those contests.

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He was acquitted by a jury of throwing the games, but he's still banned from baseball, and from the Hall of Fame.

He was only acquitted by a jury because Charlie Comiskey "lost" his signed confession that he helped throw the World Series.

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I always felt he was done an injustice by baseball, but I don't think I feel the same about Pete Rose, at least not to the same extent. I've always been of the opinion that someone who does something impressive should be honoured for it, irrespective of whatever else they may have done.

There are certain lines certain professions simply cannot cross. Cashiers can't steal from the till. Salespeople can't tell customers that products can do things that they really cannot (exaggeration is okay if unseemly, but convincing someone that the brand new cell phone can take pictures through walls is crossing the line). Radio announcers can't accept gifts in exchange for hyping up a product on the air (there's advertising and there's payola; anybody who's worked in the industry knows the difference). And athletes cannot throw ballgames.

That's the way it goes. It ruins the integrity of the game to have athletes who can throw games. It very nearly ruined baseball in the 1870s and the emergence of Babe Ruth makes people forget how precarious of a perch baseball was on in the fall of 1920. The sporting world was just 5 years removed from the Jack Johnson - Jess Willard fight, a bout Johnson would claim for years that he threw. Boxing is an excellent example of a sport that does not keep itself far enough away from the gamblers.

If baseball had let 1919 slide than it would have set an alarming precedent. The whole point of why Kenesaw Mountain Landis was hired was to allow the game to make a huge, damning point on those 8 players (and if anybody ever had a case to not be banned, it was 3rd baseman Buck Weaver, not Jackson. Jackson accepted money and played like a dog in the games the men threw. Weaver never took a penny and by the accounts of all of the other Black Sox was not in on the fix - he was banned because he had guilty knowledge). And contrary to popular belief, this was hardly a Black Sox only thing. There were I believe 20 other players banned outright or silently but totally excluded from organized baseball at about this time, including Benny Kauff (who may or may not have been stealing cars) and Hal Chase (a near-HOF quality 1st baseman whose game-fixing antics were as legendary as his fielding). Even then, there are rumors that fly around SABR-type crowds that Landis may have pushed cases involving stars such as Smokey Joe Wood and Ty Cobb under the rug. Suffice it to say, baseball was in a bad way and needed to do something.

Pete Rose bet on baseball games in such a manner that it is not clear at all whether he was setting himself up to throw games he didn't bet on, or to overplay his players in games he did bet on. He's hardly innocent and even at that from what I've heard he was going to be allowed into the Hall in 2004 but he screwed that up by going on a big "what I did wasn't SO wrong" style tirade. I get the impression that Bud has wanted an excuse to bring the guy back in the game (if only into its fringes) but Rose keeps messing it up. I don't want him back but a future commissioner will probably re-instate him.

Aaron played his entire career when uppers were pushed on and used by every mlb player nearly everyday, and they were a performance enhancing drug, yet you don't hear anything about them. Well, they were included in the banned substances list adopted by mlb, but only as an afterthought and after
a majority of the players bitched and screamed against them being banned.

Re: Bonds cheating and everyone knowing that he's cheating.

Ok, if everyone knows that he cheats and used 'roids, that would mean that the commissioner and the powers that be at major league baseball also knew/know this. So why don't they suspend him or ban him from the game.

And here's the thing that puzzles me. Many of the Bonds haters bleat and shriek that the obvious evidence for his using 'roids is that his body shape has changed dramatically, going from a slim, lithe well toned body to a bulked up muscle packed frame and that the size of his head has increased dramatically.

First off, the head thing is a bunch of crap, simply because the head can't increase in size at Bonds age because the bones in the skull stopped growing over 35 years ago.

But let's just say for the sake of argument that Bonds was doing 'roids, and that's why his body changed in appearence and why he bulked up so much.

Well, I'd say it's safe to assume that Bonds is getting tested regularly for 'roids these days and that he isn't using them, yet his body has maintained the same appearence. Same bulky muscle. Explain that.

Everything I've read about roids says that if you go off of them for an extended period of time, you will lose the muscle mass that you had built up.

Oh yeah, Pete Rose is a scumhound, plain and simple.

He still maintains that he didn't do anything wrong

Actually, Derek Zumsteg ran a study in his book The Cheater's Guide To Baseball that demonstrated how, in 2002, Bonds' homerun production went down by about half during the period he wasn't taking steroids (in Game of Shadows, the authors show that he was on a three-weeks on, one-week off steroid regimen and he complained he didn't feel right during the one week off). This held up even when compared to 3-week/one-week splits from 1998, when Bonds wasn't using.

Also, I don't think your head gets smaller after you've stopped taking HGH. Once you've morphed your body (and as much as you want to argue that Bonds looks the same now as he did in '01, he looks like a completely different person than he did in 1995). Steroids themselves only help your work out longer and recover more quickly from your workouts. Once you've gained all that muscle mass, you don't necessarily need to work as insanely strenuously as Bonds did before to keep it. Or maybe he's found a substance that current steroids tests can't detect.

As for Bonds maintaining he didn't do anything wrong, please. Pete Rose didn't admit that he bet on the game until a couple years ago, and that's despite the Dowd Report, which is about as conclusive as you can make a report be. There is a mentality among some athletes that the people who watch them are idiots who will believe anything they say because after all, they are the greatest people in the world. They are not totally wrong on this point.

The claim has been made than Rose only bet on the Reds to win. How do we know this?

We only "know" this because the people involved (including Rose) say so; as you note, it's not like bookies preserve detailed records of bets for posterity. However, I don't believe any information was uncovered that contradicted the claim.

We only "know" this because the people involved (including Rose) say so; as you note, it's not like bookies preserve detailed records of bets for posterity. However, I don't believe any information was uncovered that contradicted the claim.

- snopes

The Dowd report did find one instance in which he bet on baseball but not on the Reds. Maybe he used another bookie that has never been heard from. It's more likely that he just didn't bet on the Reds that night. Picking and choosing your spots when betting on a team you run is not far removed from betting against them outright.

Well, the center-piece of baseball is the homerun. What do you think baseball's most cherished record is? The stolen base record? The hit by pitch record?

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Aaron played his entire career when uppers were pushed on and used by every mlb player nearly everyday, and they were a performance enhancing drug, yet you don't hear anything about them. Well, they were included in the banned substances list adopted by mlb, but only as an afterthought and after
a majority of the players bitched and screamed against them being banned.

Well, I was too young to remember Aaron, but this is the very first ever accusation I have ever heard that his record is tainted. Sound like a conspiracy theory to me.

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Ok, if everyone knows that he cheats and used 'roids, that would mean that the commissioner and the powers that be at major league baseball also knew/know this. So why don't they suspend him or ban him from the game.

I agree. They should ban him. But for some reason they won't move ahead without a confession from Bonds himself. I have a feeling that even a videotape of Bonds juicing won't be enough "proof".

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And here's the thing that puzzles me. Many of the Bonds haters bleat and shriek that the obvious evidence for his using 'roids is that his body shape has changed dramatically, going from a slim, lithe well toned body to a bulked up muscle packed frame and that the size of his head has increased dramatically.

First off, the head thing is a bunch of crap, simply because the head can't increase in size at Bonds age because the bones in the skull stopped growing over 35 years ago.

But let's just say for the sake of argument that Bonds was doing 'roids, and that's why his body changed in appearence and why he bulked up so much.

Well, I'd say it's safe to assume that Bonds is getting tested regularly for 'roids these days and that he isn't using them, yet his body has maintained the same appearence. Same bulky muscle. Explain that.

Everything I've read about roids says that if you go off of them for an extended period of time, you will lose the muscle mass that you had built up.

Well, the center-piece of baseball is the homerun. What do you think baseball's most cherished record is? The stolen base record? The hit by pitch record?

To me, there is no record more hallowed than Cy Youngs career victories record. To me, the most exciting plays in baseball are 1) the strikeout 2) the double play and 3) the triple or inside-the-parker.

Hank Aaron seems to agree with me:

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I never thought home runs were all that exciting. I still think the triple is the most exciting thing in baseball.

The influx of home runs in the Majors during the late '90's drove me away from the game.

To me, there is no record more hallowed than Cy Youngs career victories record. To me, the most exciting plays in baseball are 1) the strikeout 2) the double play and 3) the triple or inside-the-parker.

In terms of numbers that fans remember, I bet far, far more know what 755 means than what 511 means. And personally I prefer the 3-6-3 double play and the suicide squeeze, but

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The influx of home runs in the Majors during the late '90's drove me away from the game.

So it wasn't, um, the strike?

I totally missed this from another poster:

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First off, the head thing is a bunch of crap, simply because the head can't increase in size at Bonds age because the bones in the skull stopped growing over 35 years ago.

First off, look at a picture of Bonds from 1991 compared to now. He's obviously been taking Human Growth Hormone which *does* yes DOES cause the body to add bone mass to some parts of the body (FWIW Roger Clemens exhibits similar late-career "growth" and I am similarly skeptical of him). From wikipedia:

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Prolonged GH excess thickens the bones of the jaw, fingers and toes. Resulting heaviness of the jaw and increased thickness of digits is referred to as acromegaly.

In terms of numbers that fans remember, I bet far, far more know what 755 means than what 511 means.

And I'm also guessing that far more know what 61 means than however many it was that Bonds hit in his record breaking year.

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And personally I prefer the 3-6-3 double play and the suicide squeeze,

Any double play is exciting, but my favorites are the ones where someone is doubled off of a base followed by a spectacular catch. I also thoroughly enjoy the strike out/caught stealing variety, and I competely forgot to mention how exciting it is to watch my team's pitcher mow down opponents with strikeout after strikeout.

As far as the suicide squeeze goes, it's probably the most painful play to lose to in all of sports.

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but

So it wasn't, um, the strike?

The strike was the somewhere towards the beginning in a long series of events. Expansion and interleague play had a lot to do with it as well, and so did what I perceived to be a decline in defense (this may only be perception on my part). Plus, watching a pitchers duel is fun, but when the first 7 inning take an hour and a half and the last 2 take two more hours because of all of the pitching changes, I tend to drink too much beer. I don't think it is a coincidence that I quit drinking and I quit watching baseball at about the same time. Finally, the extra tier in the playoffs makes the post season a lot less exciting. The baseball season is 162 games long. That's almost too long. Adding an extra playoff tier made it too long. The extremely long, drug out playoff seasons in the NBA and the NHL have driven me away from those sports as well.

First off, look at a picture of Bonds from 1991 compared to now. He's obviously been taking Human Growth Hormone which *does* yes DOES cause the body to add bone mass to some parts of the body (FWIW Roger Clemens exhibits similar late-career "growth" and I am similarly skeptical of him). From wikipedia:

This is more in response to the post you were responding to because I haven't looked closely at their photos to see if what you're saying is true. Bones continue to increase in density and thickness (slowly) for a long time after they've stopped growing in length. So many people have noticeably thicker skulls and bones in their 40s than in their 20s. As I said, I don't know if the growth you're talking about was unusually late or pronounced but I wanted to dispell the idea that bones necessarily stop thickening in the teens or early twenties. (Bones also grow thicker with use. Maybe Bonds has been breakdancing a lot!)

This is more in response to the post you were responding to because I haven't looked closely at their photos to see if what you're saying is true. Bones continue to increase in density and thickness (slowly) for a long time after they've stopped growing in length. So many people have noticeably thicker skulls and bones in their 40s than in their 20s. As I said, I don't know if the growth you're talking about was unusually late or pronounced but I wanted to dispell the idea that bones necessarily stop thickening in the teens or early twenties. (Bones also grow thicker with use. Maybe Bonds has been breakdancing a lot!)

It's very, very pronounced with Bonds and I am not aware of any particular baseball usage that would cause them to get thicker with "use". One should also point out that a. we know with virtual certainty that Bonds *did* use HGH and steroids for several years thanks to Game of Shadows, and in addition the guys who we know with absolute certainty that they used these (because they said so) also exhibit this cranial explosion (see Canseco, Jose, and Caminiti, Ken).

It's a way of pointing out the obviousness of this to people without making them read the book. Yes, I know that peoples' skulls can thicken over time... but the way the Bonds' has? I doubt that that happens terribly often IRL.

I link to this because it shows the differences in Bonds' head size. As you can see, it's pretty much the same size and shape right up until 1998-2001, when it just balloons. Does that look like the product of aging to you? Perhaps someone who knows something about cranial physiology can clarify but at this point, particularly with what we know about "the cream and the clear", citing HGH instead of natural aging as the reason for the expansion is the path of least resistance.

You're looking at an X-ray of a Mizuno PR4192 bat, commissioned by Pete Rose specifically for his 1985 chase of baseball's all-time hits record. Inside, clear as day, is a piece of foreign material, about 6 inches long, and the diameter of a nickel. This is the story of that bat.

Corked bats are an honorable tradition in baseball; Rose is far from the only player to use them (e.g., Amos Otis -- who generally has a reputation of a good guy -- said he used corked bats his entire career) and there is no consensus as to whether they actually help a batter. It's no worse than throwing a spitball or a scuffed baseball -- neither of which kept pitchers out of the Hall of Fame.

Corked bats are an honorable tradition in baseball; Rose is far from the only player to use them (e.g., Amos Otis -- who generally has a reputation of a good guy -- said he used corked bats his entire career) and there is no consensus as to whether they actually help a batter. It's no worse than throwing a spitball or a scuffed baseball -- neither of which kept pitchers out of the Hall of Fame.

Has anyone suggested that Rose, or anyone else, be kept out of the HoF for corking a bat?

Rob Manfred, who succeeded longtime commissioner Bud Selig in January, has denied Rose's application for reinstatement, informing baseball's all-time hits king on Monday that he will remain on the outside looking in nearly three decades after his ban for gambling on the sport, and issuing a three-page statement that says Rose has fallen far short of rehabilitating his life in a fashion that suggests he could associate with a major league team.